Chapter Twenty-Three Barb
Chapter Twenty-Three
Barb
Jasper and I are at a small playground along the beach when Tessa finds us.
Playground is a generous term for the sculptures that line the sand.
Jasper doesn’t mind. He asserts his independence on the boat, scrambling up the stones to the bow and barreling down to the stern.
When Jasper spots Tessa, he gallops toward her.
She squats and lifts him into the air, the conflict vanishing from her face.
For a moment, there’s only her son, until she sets him on the ground and finds me and the pained expression returns.
I don’t know what an embryologist does, but I don’t interrupt Tessa as she shakily tells me the news. Her fingers twist, her body rocks, every part of her in subtle motion. This embryologist’s overdose reads as unlikely to her as Regina’s intoxication sounded to me.
We stand at the edge of the grass as Jasper explores the dragon head, tiptoeing into its maw before jumping back, delighted that it didn’t animate and devour him. “I told Officer Gonzales I think they’re connected. You can guess how he responded.”
“You think someone’s targeting your husband?
” It gives me whiplash. Gabe Irons. Dan Huntsman.
Gabe Irons again. The moment Maisy told me, I knew it was Tessa’s husband.
I let myself be distracted by their neighbor and his anger.
That kind of anger is too obvious. Although I still don’t entirely understand what transpired last night when Tessa called the cops, I get her impulse, the desire to protect that came out wrong.
It cost Tessa her best friend. Fortunately, the same wasn’t true for me, only because Linda doesn’t know what I was searching for in Jessica’s emails, if she knows the particulars of my firing at all.
Tessa bites the corner of her mouth so hard she winces. “First our house, now his office. You see how this doesn’t seem random?”
“Is there anywhere you and Jasper can stay until it’s clear what’s going on? Go visit family?”
Tessa’s eyes well, and I don’t know how I didn’t notice it before. There is no family. Nowhere to go. There’s only Gabe and their house along the canals.
“We’ll be fine.” She forces a grin. “There’re always people watching. Besides, Gabe would never leave.”
Maybe you should leave him. I don’t say this. I can’t say this.
“I’m worried,” I try again.
“Thanks.” She pauses, deliberating over what to say next. As she’s about to continue, Jasper points to a kite diving in the wind, then darts across the grass toward it. “Jasper, stop.”
Tessa grabs the collapsed stroller, tosses it over her shoulder, and moves alarmingly fast in her bowlegged waddle, catching up with her son less than twenty yards away.
“Tessa.” I start toward them, prepared to say whatever I can to keep her from her home, her husband.
“I’ll call you later.” She waves, saddled with her son and the stroller and a truth she will not confront.
“No, wait—” I start to follow her, but she’s already on the walkway, headed home.
As I unlock the door to my hotel room, I berate myself for not bringing Tessa and Jasper with me.
I could have splurged for an extra room.
Or Tessa could certainly afford it. She was so rattled that I forgot to tell her about April’s weird response, how she said Regina was taking advantage of innocent people.
This feels more ominous now that someone else is dead.
I flop back onto my king-size bed, so exhausted I could pass out in my street clothes.
On my phone, I google what embryologists do.
They’re the lords of the lab, the caretakers of women’s eggs as soon as the eggs are retrieved, the ones who check viability and fertilize.
The doctors may get the fame and glory, but the embryologists are the ones who make it all possible.
Why would someone want to kill an embryologist, at work no less?
I google “Aram”—I don’t know his last name—“embryologist, Longevity Fertility,” not expecting results.
After all, Gabe didn’t advertise his employees’ services on his website.
As images of Aram Yassin load, I bolt up in bed.
It’s the man from the beach, who I also saw at that Rosebud building.
I can still picture the fearful expression on his face as he recognized me.
He was manic, not drugged. Terrified, not paranoid. And now he’s dead.
My phone rings. An unfamiliar 310 number. I pick it up, knowing it’s local.
“Barb? It’s Maisy. Regina’s—” She pauses, not knowing what to call herself.
“Hi, Maisy.” I stand, fully energized. “How are you holding up?”
It’s the fate of the older woman to put other people’s needs first, even when they’re grieving. It’s the fate of human resources too. Maybe that’s why so many women go into the field, because it reduces us to being the moms of the workforce.
“As good as can be expected.” I wait for her to ask me how I’m doing, too, wondering if I’ll give her a noncommittal response. “I found Reggie’s computer. I didn’t realize she’d left it here.”
Her words are wooden, stiff from the lie. She knew she had it. She had no intention of giving it back to me. I don’t ask why she’s changed her mind. Instead, I offer to pick it up.
When I arrive at the building, Maisy is waiting outside, the computer resting in her lap. Her lipstick is smudged, her eyes puffy. I fight the urge to comfort her. Despite how much she’s clearly hurting, I still don’t like Maisy. It’s instinctive. And overwhelming.
“My therapist said I should give it back to you,” she admits, handing the computer to me. “I don’t know why I kept it. I can’t even get onto it. She changed her password like every week.”
“Why?”
Maisy shrugs. “She said it was for work.”
“Thank you for giving it to me now.” The impulse to hug Maisy intensifies, so I pull the computer to my chest, giving it the maternal comfort I can’t offer her. She smiles sheepishly at me before holding a hand up in goodbye and disappearing inside.
As I make my way to my car, I text Tessa to tell her that I have Regina’s computer. Almost immediately, she texts back to meet at Café Collage in a half hour. Clearly, she’s been waiting for my text. Clearly, she doesn’t want to be alone with her thoughts either.
I’m the first to arrive at the café, so I order us each a smoothie and settle into what has become our regular table, tucked away in the far corner.
I place Regina’s computer on the crumb-covered tabletop and decide to search it while I wait for Tessa.
Her backdrop is a photograph of surfers bobbing along the waves at sunrise.
At the center of the screen, a small image of Regina hovers above a space to enter a password.
In the photo, she has that knowing expression, a smirk just short of a smile.
My fingers lurk above the keyboard, and I rack my brain for the password. I have no idea what it could be, particularly if she changed it so often. And why would she change it so often as a tutor? A casting agent?
I read in some mystery—I forget which, one where the main character was tech-savvy—that the most secure way to store passwords is on paper, hidden in your home, written in a shorthand only you can decipher.
If this low-tech approach really is the most secure, it’s probably what Regina did.
I try to think if I’d seen a list of passwords anywhere.
Then I remember the notebook I took from Regina’s apartment. It’s still in my purse.
I flip through, skimming over the drawings of Maisy, the barista who ignores me now, those other unfamiliar faces, Regina’s sad grocery list, a seagull pecking a—wait.
Was that . . . ? Could it have been? I page back through a series of sketches of skateboarders until I see him.
It’s a close-up of his face, his trimmed beard, that aquiline nose, those thick eyelashes.
It’s as detailed as any of the drawings of Maisy, and it’s of Aram, the embryologist.
After that, I stop searching for the passwords. I leave the notebook open to his portrait and wait for Tessa.
Jasper lights up when he sees me, and through the dread, something softens in me. He’s been the one bright spot in all this. He and Tessa. But I have no idea how she’ll feel toward me when she uncovers the truth about her husband.
Tessa dumps an armload of treats in Jasper’s lap, burying him in the sugar and preservatives that would have many contemporary mothers judging. I don’t judge her. I won’t judge her.
With Jasper entertained, Tessa sits across from me, immediately noticing the sketchbook splayed open on the table.
“What’s this?” She shifts the notebook around so she’s staring directly at Aram. “Is this—was this Regina’s?”
I nod, waiting for the inevitable chain of realizations: Regina knew Aram. She must have known Gabe too. They’re both dead. He killed them.
She pores over the drawing, trying to decide what it portends. I can see the thoughts forming as she traces the confident lines of Regina’s portrait. Then she shakes her head like she’s warding off a chill and asks, “Is that Regina’s computer?”
At first, I’m not sure how she knows, until I see the bumper stickers on the back that reveal it to be the computer of a young person. Younger, anyway.
“There’s a password. I’m not sure, this might be it.” I flip through the sketchbook, Aram’s picture disappearing between its pages until I find the list of passwords, all crossed out except the last.